Regional budget up for vote

By Graeme McNaughton/The Oshawa Express

First it was the city’s turn. Now, tax time has come to regional headquarters.

During a two-day session of the region’s finance and administration committee, councillors voted to send a proposed 1.65-per-cent tax increase to a vote by council. That would equate to an average increase of $40 per household.

This comes in at below the guidelines set out late last year, with a report from Jim Clapp, the region’s finance commissioner, capping the tax increase to 1.75 per cent.

Bob Chapman, an Oshawa councillor and chair of the finance and administration committee, said that while nobody wants to see their tax bills get bigger, this one will be manageable.

“Nobody likes to have their taxes go up. All of us pay taxes in the Region of Durham and whatever municipality we’re from, but I think this is affordable for the residents and it takes into consideration a lot of things,” he said at the conclusion of the two-day session.

In the budget, the region is set to spend $507.588 million for general purposes, which includes regional operations, police and conservation authorities. Other expenses include $44.375 million budgeted for solid waste management, $48.5 million for public transit and $7.9 million for the regional transit authority’s capital expenditures program.

Social services

While not included in the budget as presented to the finance committee, the region’s health and social services committee voted the week before to request an additional $100,000 to be put into the budget to go toward child poverty efforts.

Anderson, however, said that instead of adding an additional $100,000 to the social services budget that the money should be found within the existing spending.

“I have no problem with $100,000 for the program, but I do have a problem with the addition to the budget. If the health committee feels that that’s a priority for their budget, fine, let them find it within their budget,” Anderson said in reply to Neal’s motion.

“But to add $100,000, I don’t think is the appropriate action at this time.”

Diamond agreed with Anderson’s comments, saying that the social service budget already contains plenty of funding for efforts combating poverty.

“When we look even in the overview report at the beginning of our budget books, we see that there’s already…increased provincial childcare subsidy to fund 96 additional subsidized spaces, continuation of the province’s wage enhancement program, there’s additional funding in children’s services programs in special needs resourcing, there’s startup support for childcare providers, and it’s $700,000 going into that bracket,” she said, also detailing additional spending for homelessness prevention.

“I think that staff, and through the committee as a whole, have managed the money they had, managed to find some extra dollars to redirect.”

Clarington councillor Joe Neal, who drafted the resolution calling for more funds, voiced his disappointment that his motion would not pass, pointing out issues around child poverty have hit parts of the region for decades.

“An aunt of mine was a principal at a school in south Oshawa back in the 60s, and I remember her talking about that. She always kept food on hand because kids were coming to school hungry. So that was the spur behind that,” he said. “I’ll find it disappointing if this committee says no to something that’s fairly modest and only look at the millions that gets spent on highly paid consultants…and you can’t find $100,000 for an initiative like that in addition to what we’ve asked for. The social services budget is going up 0.23 per cent, yet this committee is effectively saying no to this initiative. I find that disappointing.”

The department’s $79-million budget passed as was presented to the committee without the addition of the $100,000.

Police

While last year’s budget saw the lowest increase in nearly two decades – a 1.59 per cent bump over 2014 – Durham police have been given an increase more than double that for 2016.

Councillors voted to give police a budget increase of just under four per cent, working out to nearly $7 million in additional funds, putting the force’s budget at approximately $187.5 million.

In October, the police services board initially presented a budget of $189.12 million, but had to bring it done after budget guidelines were set by the finance department which would cap the budget at $187.5 million. Changes made to the initial budget included deferring the hiring of new officers and reducing funding for asset replacement.

During budget deliberations at the finance committee, Councillor Nancy Diamond commented on the amount of debt being shouldered by the force.

“Each year, I am compelled to speak to the capital costs, and then again seeing the additional costs of operation and the number of buildings that are still in the plan and the debt load,” she said, mirroring comments she made during last year’s budget deliberations.

“I know it is what it says in (the report), but I remain concerned about the long-term debt and the number of capital assets, buildings and the size and scope.”

According to the budget document, Durham police is current financing $54.49 million in debt for capital projects.

Health

The police weren’t the only department that had to take a second look at its budget after completing its initial budget.

The region’s public health authority will have $14.19 million coming to it from the region for 2016, up from $14.05 million last year. However, according to a report from Dr. Robert Kyle, the region’s health commissioner, the actual expenditures by the department for 2015 was $11.266 million.

The original budget presented by health department staff had the budget closer to $17.5 million.

The final budget submitted to the finance committee showed budget cuts to family health ($260,000), environmental health and emergency preparedness ($12,000) and chronic diseases and injury ($4,000). However, while these budgeted numbers are lower than what they were for 2015, they are still above what was actually spent from those budgeted funds in that timeframe.

The department will also be spending an additional $954,000 to cover increased salaries and benefits.